Numismatics and Archaeology

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

If you're looking for an opportunity to support archaeology and directly impact students, here is a chance. The Huqoq Excavation Project is seeking donations with the target goal of $5,000 to support the travel of three graduate students (object specialists and assistant square supervisors) via experiment.com. To be successful, the target goal of $5,000 must be met in 35 days.

The excavations are exploring the remains of a Late Roman/Byzantine-era synagogue and an associated village. In the past several years, Huqoq has received wide coverage in the media for the discovery fine, colored mosaics in the synagogue, including the unprecedented appearance of a Greek king, perhaps Alexander the Great. For some discussion of the recent discoveries, see coverage in the Times of Israel.

Please consider donating today and directly affect students and archaeological study in a positive way. Click here to donate.

Friday, June 13, 2014

The international conference Currency between Cultures will be held at the University of Warwick on July 3, 2014.

Though money is often characterised as an impersonal medium of exchange,
it remains intricately connected to cultural value systems, social
relationships, and political regimes. These characteristics are linked
to the role of currency as a medium of commensuration designed to render
equivalent and transitive once incomparable objects, ideas, signs, and
meanings. In this way money goes ‘between’ cultures, and as a medium at
the point of contact, money can often become ideologically charged. The
eurozone, the rise of alternative currencies like Bitcoin, and the
symbolic transformation of currencies during events like the Occupy
movement ("We need a Revolution"), indicate that the social,
ideological, and political aspects of money remain key modern concerns.
This interdisciplinary conference aims to explore the differing ways
money has connected, subverted, and entangled different cultures
throughout history.

The antics of the dealer lobby know no bounds. It is now being alleged by the group's lobbyist that numismatists in favor of the protection of ancient coins have ghost-written each others comments to CPAC. As absurd as the notion is, I suppose it is not unexpected from those quarters. Conspiracy theories are endemic among the dealer lobby's leadership, which is quite indicative of the desperation of their position.

And yes, there is something seemingly duplicitous in one lobby leader's acknowledgment of ancient Egypt's closed currency system before the lobby's founding, and then later pretending it did not exist when commenting on the potential MOU with Egypt. These intellectual changes of heart also speak to the desperation of their argument that coins do not merit or warrant protection.

Update, 5/27. Digging the hole deeper, the paid lobbyist, Peter Tompa, assumes I sent comments to CPAC on the potential MOU with Egypt and now demands that I make these presumed comments public. I am not sure who he thinks he is to make such demands. Nonetheless, whether or not I elected to exercise my right to make a comment is my decision alone and the CPAC allows comments to be submitted any number of ways.

He attempts to qualify his unusual interest in the matter: "CPO [Peter Tompa] does not question Elkins' (or anyone else's) rights to express their
views to CPAC, just his unwillingness to let others assess for
themselves their accuracy." I must say past actions do not bear this out. 1. The dealer lobby's leadership and its lobbyist do not rely on logic and facts to construct arguments, as the recent episode regarding circulation patterns in Egypt illustrates. 2. I recall multiple instances in which the dealer lobby (and yes, the lobbyist in question) have attempted to intimidate and perhaps even to undermine the employment of those who have voiced support for MOUs and advocated the protection of coins. And finally, it is not up to agenda-driven lobbyists to "assess for themselves the accuracy" of comments submitted to CPAC - that is up to the respective members of CPAC, appointed by the President.

Saturday, May 17, 2014

The dealer lobby is irritated that people who have expertise on ancient coins have written in favor of a potential MOU with Egypt. One commentator and dealer is outright resentful that any specialist should support an MOU and goes so far as pronounce that the protection of coins in the MOUs is "extralegal."

The Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act (CCPIA) mandates that protected objects be "first discovered in" the
State Party. From the point-of-view of the dealer lobby, coins should not
be protected since they circulated. They demand that it be proved
beyond a doubt that each individual coin coming into the United States was found in a particular
State Party, a task made nearly impossible when a coin is dug up,
smuggled, cleaned, and sold by a dealer. The act of looting and smuggling destroys this information.

The dealer lobby asserts that coins are a special case since they "circulated widely" and are "common." But are they such an exception? Some coins circulated very widely and some circulated on a more local or regional level. Apart from static monuments, many ancient objects, in addition to coins,
moved around to greater and lesser degrees. Ceramics are a prime example; they could circulate widely and they are "common." Even local wares are sometimes
found far afield, although the majority are found locally. These, like circulating coins, are a testament to trade, economic conditions, and the movement of peoples and populations. The Etruscans were avid consumers of Greek painted pottery. The MOU with Italy protects Attic and Corinthian
painted ceramics since these are frequently found in Etruscan tombs,
even though they were made in Greece and can be found in other countries
as well.

With Egyptian coins, the dealer lobby is reasserting the notion that coins "circulated widely" and should not be protected because they could be found anywhere. Yes, there are examples of Egyptian coins found outside of Egypt, but Egyptian coins are found primarily in Egypt. In contesting the potential protection of Egyptian coins, the desperation of their argument is apparent as they refuse to acknowledge long-standing scholarship on ancient Egyptian coins and Egypt's closed currency system, which caused Egypt to retain much of its currency in antiquity.

One commentator points to the Portable Antiquities Scheme database as evidence that Egyptian coins can be found as far away as England. Interestingly, what he does not acknowledge is that the majority of these are late Roman bronze coins from the mint of Alexandria; late Roman bronze coins have not been included in any MOUs thus far as they circulated widely and certainly they were not the subject of any comments sent to the Cultural Property Advisory Committee by advocates for the protection of coins. Again, that commentator refuses to acknowledge the closed currency system in Egypt and the fact that the majority of Egyptian coins will have been found in Egypt, just as a great many Attic and Corinthian ceramics will be found in Italy.

Finally, the protection of coins is extralegal only in the dealer lobby's opinion. Thus far, the lobby has been unsuccessful in undermining import restrictions in the courts. In fact, import restrictions on coins have been upheld by the courts as legal. In fact, the federal district court wrote:

“[I]nterpreting the ‘first discovered in’ requirement to
preclude the State Department from barring the importation of
archaeological objects with unknown find spots would undermine the core
purpose of the CPIA, namely to deter looting of cultural property. See
19 U.S.C. § 2602(a)(1)(A)” (p. 35)."

The court further notes that the
“ACCG’s argument, if taken to its logical conclusion, could bring into
question the import restrictions on every, or almost every, item on the
designated lists" (p. 36).

Indeed, it would. And business as usual in the antiquities trade seems to be the intent behind the strategy.

Update, 517/2014: One lobbyist now insists that scholarly evidence cannot be produced that Egyptian coins are found in Egypt. I do look forward to a book from the lawyer/lobbyist that subverts decades of archaeological and numismatic understanding Egypt's closed currency system.

And apparently lobbyists/lawyers can declare what is legal and what is not - forget the courts. But I do not remember it working that way in civics class in grade school...

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

The inclusion of ancient coins in various Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) between the U.S. and other countries is a debated issue. Many academics, archaeologists, and numismatists are in favor of the inclusion and protection of coins in these agreements. Many coin dealers and collectors are not.

The ancient coin dealer lobby, primarily the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild (ACCG), consistently makes an effort to dissuade CPAC from the protection of coins each time a request for an MOU is made. Their arguments have been repeated recently since the Cultural Property Advisory Committee (CPAC) has asked for public comment on a potential MOU with Egypt that would place limits on imports of cultural and archaeological items into the U.S. that lack documentation prior to the date of enactment of that potential MOU. Namely, the lobby says coins are "common" and therefore do not warrant protection because they are not culturally or archaeologically significant, or they say it is impractical to protect coins since they circulated widely, and so one cannot say where a coin came from since dealers and suppliers do not record or track find spots. A few commentators have been so bold as to assert that there is no evidence that looted material from Egypt has made its way to American markets.

Those assertions are problematic.

1. The fact that coins were widely produced is precisely what makes them archaeologically and culturally significant. Coins communicated civic identities and/or political ideologies, whether "high art objects" or not, although the ancient understanding of "art" was very different from our modern understanding. And in Greek and Roman period excavations, coins are often one of the most common types of small finds, apart from pot sherds. Coins are vital chronological indicators and also speak to economic conditions at various sites. When one removes them from a site without record, what can be said about that site and the ancient people who lived or conducted activity there is greatly diminished. Imagine if there were a lobby attempting to exempt ancient ceramics from protection in MOUs; these are equally significant as coins, even though they are exponentially more "common" than coins. And their removal from sites is equally destructive to archaeology and the writing of history. Coins are both archaeologically and culturally significant objects; it is clandestine digging, looting, and smuggling of coins that neutralizes their potential archaeological value and diminishes their cultural value.

2. One of the most recent cases that demonstrated that Egyptian material is being smuggled into the United States is that of U.S. v. Khouli et al. In addition to Egyptian sarcophagi smuggled into the U.S., two of the involved defendants have also sold ancient coins in North America: Khouli and Alshadaifat. Alshadaifat operates a wholesale business and has supplied Egyptian and Middle Eastern coins to dealers and collectors in the United States.

3. It is true that a great many coins in Greek and Roman antiquity circulated very widely, such as Athenian tetradrachms or Roman Republican and Imperial denarii. But the blanket assertion that ancient coins circulated widely and therefore cannot be attributed to a country in which they were found (as mandated by the Cultural Property Implementation Act) is untheorized. Many classes of ancient coins circulated on local or regional levels, such as the Roman provincial coinage. A Roman provincial bronze coin from Cyprus, for example, will most probably have been found in Cyprus. Coin circulation is a much more nuanced subject than the lobby acknowledges in its dealings with CPAC, the U.S. Department of State, and U.S. Customs.

In the public comments on the potential MOU with Egypt, it is remarkable that a number of coin dealers are asserting that coins ought not be protected because they circulated widely. This is, of course, a strained argument to make in view of the fact that ancient Egypt famously had a closed currency system in both the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. This does not mean that Egyptian coins are not found outside of Egypt - they are. But the vast majority of Egyptian coins are found in Egypt. One reason for Egypt's closed currency system may have been Egypt's need to
retain silver since there were no silver resources in ancient Egypt;
topography also isolated Egypt. In fact, Egypt's closed currency system is perhaps the best-known instance of locally or regionally circulating coinage in the ancient world and it is widely discussed in both collector and scholarly literature. A few examples include:

One popular book with ancient coin collectors, written in the 1990s , made note of Egypt's closed currency zone (W. Sayles, Ancient Coin Collecting IV: Roman Provincial Coins. (Iola, WI: Krause, 1998), page 87.). The author of that book is Wayne Sayles, the executive director of the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild (ACCG), although he made reference to Egypt's closed currency zone before he founded and took on the leadership of the lobby group in 2004. Interestingly, in his comments to CPAC concerning a potential MOU with Egypt, incongruous with what he wrote 16 years before, he proclaims: "Coins struck in Egypt during antiquity traveled widely then, and since then, as instruments of monetary exchange and of cultural interest." He refers also to Peter Tompa's letter, which addresses examples of coins of Egyptian type found outside of Egypt and characterizes Egyptian coins as circulating widely (Tompa is the ACCG's attorney and lobbyist). Both Sayles and Tompa overlook the fact that these foreign finds are exceptions, not the rule, and that the vast majority of Egyptian coins are found in Egypt, which had a closed currency system in the Hellenistic and Roman periods.

Fortunately, the distinguished members of CPAC take account of the substance of comments and evidence presented to them during the period of public comment.

Monday, May 12, 2014

I have just heard from a colleague at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens that the publications committee recently voted to place ASCSA's out-of-print monographs on the Athenian Agora, Corinth, and the Hesperia supplements on its website. The publications have been made freely available in consultation with JSTOR, which provided the scans.

Some important references on coin finds in Greece are included and have been placed online.

In addition to the monographs on the coin finds, there are of course several other important reports on various objects and monuments (ceramics, architecture, sculpture, etc.). A complete list of the ASCSA's open-access monographs can be found here.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Bulgarian news agencies are reporting that the United States and the Republic of Bulgaria signed a Memorandum of Understanding to prevent the trafficking of looted and stolen cultural items.

Bulgaria and the US signed on January 14 a memorandum of understanding
on the protection of cultural heritage, meant to prevent the illicit
trade of Bulgarian cultural heritage items and allow the return to
Bulgaria of such items smuggled into the US.

The agreement was signed by US ambassador to Bulgaria Marcie B. Ries
and Bulgaria’s Culture Minister Petar Stoyanovich at the National
History Museum in Boyana.

The agreement authorises the US department of homeland security to
prevent the import into the United States of Bulgarian cultural heritage
items without a licence issued by the Bulgarian government and commits
the US government to publish a list of prohibited items, which are to be
seized unless the importer presents such a license.

The import restrictions will apply to a broad range of archaeological
and religious items, as set forth in a designated list, to be published
in the US Federal Register in the coming days, Ries said.

In addition to the import restrictions, the memorandum promotes
further cooperation and information sharing between US and Bulgarian
law-enforcement agencies.

“Of course this agreement will not eliminate the problem overnight.
We recognise that and we also recognise that we must continue to work
creatively together to preserve what we all recognise to be an
invaluable cultural heritage. This agreement is of importance for its
substance but also because it means more cooperation on a daily basis in
the area of culture which is of importance to both Bulgarians and
Americans,” Ries said.

Archaeologists, art historians, and academic numismatists had endorsed the MoU at the hearing of the Cultural Property Advisory Committee on 16 November 2011 (see here for a summary of comments). Commercial lobby groups in the United States and abroad have fought vigorously against the inclusion of ancient coins in Memoranda of Understanding. It is, therefore, notable that coins that primarily circulated in and are found in ancient Bulgaria are subject to protection.

a. Pre-monetary media of exchange including “arrow money,”
bells, and bracelets. Approximate date: 13th century B.C. through 6th century
B.C.

b. Thracian and Hellenistic coins struck in gold, silver,
and bronze by city-states and kingdoms that operated in the territory of the
modern Bulgarian state. This designation includes official coinages of Greek-using
city-states and kingdoms, Sycthian and Celtic coinage, and local imitations of
official issues. Also included are Greek coins from nearby regions that are
found in Bulgaria. Approximate date: 6th century BC through the 1st century
B.C.

c. Roman provincial coins – Locally produced coins usually
struck in bronze or copper at mints in the territory of the modern state of Bulgaria.
May also be silver, silver plate, or gold. Approximate date: 1st century BC
through the 4th century A.D.

d. Coinage of the First and Second Bulgarian Empires and
Byzantine Empire – Struck in gold, silver, and bronze by Bulgarian and
Byzantine emperors at mints within the modern state of Bulgaria. Approximate
date: 4th century A.D. through A.D. 1396.

e. Ottoman coins – Struck at mints within the modern state
of Bulgaria. Approximate date: A.D. 1396 through A.D. 1750.

The MoU with Bulgaria is momentous. This is the first Memorandum to protect some post-Classical coins as
coins of the First Bulgarian Empire and Ottoman Empire are subject to
restrictions. Most importantly, Bulgaria is one of the primary source countries for illicitly traded metal artifacts and ancient coins. Smuggled finds are imported and sold in the United States by the tens of thousands; the problem has been written about and studied extensively since the 1990s.